Hip-hop production tutorials, news, review, marketing and ideas.

My roomate Scruff just picked up the new Wired magazine ( yes we still buy magazine….for the can!) and the first article, Here it Goes Again: Games like Rock Band pump up music sales. So why record labels want to take the air out? by Jeff Howe pertains to the post I wrote this morning.

“The amount being paid to the music industry, even though these games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small.”Edgar bronfman Ceo of Warner music group

…….Guitar Hero and Rock band have become an industry in their own right, raking in more than $2.3 BILLION over the past three years.

Wow that right on the money. They still try to control and maximize any and every profit. The only people trying to stop the sharing of the media are the one in control. The ones that are loosing money from it. This could be a nice income stream for the music industry, like Howe puts it

With more entries to come in the play-along genre, and networked hardware to play them on, the game themselves could evenbecome an online music retail channel to rival with iTunes.

I think the numbers that these games have pulled in the last 3 years could be enough to jusity them as a great opportunity. Why not cooperate with the game studio? Why not open the vault of the label? Yes you will loose some money on the Publishing( lets be real, this side of the business is also dying) but think about all the futur income and possibility it could generate. How many kids knew about Molly Hatchet, Deep Purple or The Who before Rock Band ? Probably not many 7 to 17 years old (teen and tween market segment)…..see my point?

Aerosmith has reportedly earned more from Guitar Hero:Aerosmith than from any single album in the band’s history.

Try to build with these channels instead of aiming for that deal with a major that probably will end up in you making little to no money and not owning the rights to your master recording. INDY all the way baby!

Over at making the mogul there is a great example of this with Steve Pageot, a Grammy winning producer/engineer talking on how he got into video games/ movies/television music:

How did you break into producing music for movies, television and video games?

This is how it happened – In 1999, a friend of mine introduced me to a lady who was working for Arista Records. I introduced myself; I told her I produce records and also compose music and she told me about a friend of hers who lives in her building who’s a jingle producer and he’s looking for composers because he has too much work. So the next day, I sent my package to her and she sent it to the jingle producer. He called me a week later and told me he would like to meet me. I played him some of my scores and he loved them. That’s how I got into the game. But working with him, he taught me how to make music for jingles. Making jingles and making records are two different things. In a jingle, you’ve got 30 seconds or 60 seconds to put all your ideas together. But making a record, you’ve got about 4 minutes to express yourself. So by me doing jingles, it made me work faster and smarter. So now when I do records, it doesn’t take me that long to make. Then with the experience of that, I got into making music for TV - for MTV and VH1. But it all started with the jingles.

Is there more money in producing for avenues like television and video games as opposed to producing for artists?

Oh yeah. With a 30 second jingle, I can make $30,000. Actually, there’s a book coming out very soon by Wendell Hanes called The 30/30 Career: Making 30 Grand in 30 Seconds. I wrote a chapter in there about mixing – the difference between mixing music for records and mixing music for TV. That should be coming out very soon.

I’ve been trying myself to get into this as well, here is a post I wrote about this over at illmuzik.com

I’ve had a few beats placed in local movie scere, and in upcoming video games (sorry this one i can’t disclose….trust me I hate people who do this but now I understand why)

All of those connections came from one guy, I did 4 songs on his Final University film project for free and did some sound design for another animation he did. All for free and now this guy is like a walking business card for me plugs me in any chance he gets.

My tips:
Go to local Univ. Film or communication departement, and post up a sign, look up on craigslist in your city under the gig section. Like Shadeed said go to movie and theater premier and chat up the people. You would be amazed at how receptive the people are on premier night.

I work in a hotel and I was talking to one of the guest and one thing led to another. Let me find out that this guys is the head man in charge of previsualization for Spielberg. He was telling me that the always add audio and songs even if its only previz. just to get an idea, sometimes the song makes it in the actual feature film. Now, I got access to that guys ear anytime.